


your name tattooed inside of my heart

by voodoochild



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Buddhism, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Tattoos, Vignette, WWE NXT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: Yuánfèn: a relationship brought by fate or destiny; the binding force which eventually links two people together in love. Finn sees Bayley's tattoo and knows it's fate.





	your name tattooed inside of my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatBohoFemme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatBohoFemme/gifts).



> Title from the Gaslight Anthem's "American Slang".

He sees the tattoo on her wrist the first day at the PC. 

He hopes she understands its significance, that she didn't just choose it because it's pretty. He wonders why she'd chosen the Chinese character, if she'd known that the red lotus means compassion and purity, why she'd chosen yellow for the star (is it because it's a common color, or does she recognize her need for humility and spirituality?). Why did she choose the wrist, a place which anyone who shakes her hand can see? He tells himself he's just curious, that he'd have wondered about Charlotte's or Corey's or Kevin's ink, too, which is a bold-faced lie.

(Charlotte never talks about her tattoos, even the words on her arm, and that's fine. Corey won't shut up about his, which is only fine when Finn is in the mood for Corey's constant chattering. Kevin . . . yes, okay, he might have been staring at that bull and the knuckle tats for a while, but what he feels for Kevin is warmth and an easiness, even from the first moment they meet.)

This girl is different. 

He goes two days without getting to meet her. He's filling out paperwork for Matt and Hunter, getting tackled by Becky, eating sushi and drinking sake with Akira and Kenta, catching up with some of the guys he'd worked with on the indies and being dragged all over the PC by Sami (who has appointed himself the official welcoming committee). He knows Becky's got some besties she wants to introduce to him, one who'd even worked for Stardom and Shimmer, and it's not until the third day that he gets the chance. 

Becky corners him after promo class - he's in intermediate, his in-ring work is pro-level, but he's never been the greatest talker - with three girls behind her. Charlotte is tall and intimidating, Sasha is tiny and smartarsed, but he barely notices because the girl with the tattoo is standing next to Becky, hair in a side ponytail and smiling at him. Bayley, her name is, and he remembers Regal asking the pro class to watch her match with Charlotte at the last Takeover to illustrate a point about storytelling.

She's amazing, and he actually stumbles over his name when he introduces himself. He continues digging himself into a hole when he blurts out a question demonstrating his obsession with her tattoo.

"What's the _zi_ for?"

She looks a little startled, turns her hand over and presses it to her side. "It means 'child'. I, um, had a boyfriend who was really into Buddhism, and the religion lasted longer than the relationship. I'm kind of a child when it comes to learning about it, so that's why I got the character."

Sasha elbows her. "Dude, you never told me that! I gotta be a hot Irishman to find out about your tattoos?"

Becky laughs, makes some joke about Finn being charming, and they all make plans to go mini-golfing on the weekend, but he can't get Bayley out of his head. Not that day, not the next, or the next. It's not simple attraction - though she is beautiful - and it's not simple curiosity. He doesn't know what to call it.

***

They become friends, and they hang out. They drink Cuervo together, they build Lego sets together, they play video games together. He crashes on her and Carm's couch a bunch, and she hijacks his favorite pair of pajama pants for her own use. She picks him up from the hospital when he tears his MCL, organizes Enzo and Cass and Kevin and Sami and Kenta and Nev and Becky to stay with him on a rotating basis. He appreciates everyone else, but god, does he look forward to when Bayley is the one scheduled to keep him company.

NXT is a dream, it really is. The silly romance angle - which he loves, he just adores and he can't show her how much. It's even better when she becomes champion, because as the men's champ, it's only natural that they accompany each other everywhere. Shinsuke arrives, and the reminder of Japan makes him even more competitive, makes him show off for her. It's so perfect, and of course it has to come back down to earth.

He gets the call-up, and she's there for it. She puts on a smile for him, hugs him, says all the right things, but he can see the hurt in her eyes: another one of her People, leaving her behind. The girls. Kevin and Sami. Now him. She's losing hope of ever getting the call herself, and that's so unfair, she's so good. 

He goes to find her after training, finds her sitting against the wall in the women's locker room, and sits crosslegged next to her.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, and her voice is rough.

He slides over, wraps an arm around her. "Could ask you the same question."

"It's bullshit."

"I don't think it is, Bay. What's wrong?"

She shakes her head. "Seriously, it's nothing, I'm happy for you. You're gonna be great, you're gonna kill it there like you've been killing it here."

Nothing he could say about the call-up would really help. She's heard it all before, the backhanded compliments ("you're too good, we need you here") and the platitudes ("there's so many moving parts, but it's going to happen for you eventually"). He takes her right hand in his left, turns it over to trace delicately at the tattoo.

"You've always fascinated me, you know," he says instead. His finger skims across the zi, then down to the lotus flower. "A woman who considers herself a spiritual child, who respects another culture enough to put it on her body. But the open lotus means enlightenment reached, spirituality attained. Why did you choose that?"

"It looked better." She looks down, abashed. "I know, I probably should have gotten the half-closed lotus, but I wanted the full one. I think of it - ah, fuck, it's stupid."

"It's not. I'd like to know."

"Why are you so fascinated with my tattoo?"

He closes his hand around her wrist, his thumb gently brushing over the star. "I did a lot of things in Japan. Most of 'em . . . they weren't so good. I got caught up in the lifestyle, the booze, the endorsement deals, everything being given to me. I felt like it was a roller coaster, and when I was on it, I fuckin' loved it. But on the rare moments of quiet, I'd sit in my flat and think - is this it? Like, was I gonna wrestle and model and just live in Japan forever?"

Bayley doesn't say anything, just lays her head on his shoulder. She does that, a lot, when she's friends with someone and wants to let them know that she's here for them, that she is listening.

"I didn't... none of the boys were really introspective types. Kenny was fun, the BC boys were fun, Ryo and Tana and Kota were great, but there was no one I could talk to about the stuff that mattered, except for this guy Hiro. Buddhism is very important in Japan, the idea of karma, the idea of social responsibility, and he'd badger me into taking better care of myself. Thinking about a year from now, five years from now, how my body would feel if I drank that bottle of sake or had that kind of sex - stuff I'd never considered. He taught me some of the basics of Buddhism, and I've been reading about it off and on ever since. So I admire you for taking so much of it to heart, putting so much of yourself on your skin."

"The lotus is . . . it's wrestling. I got the character first, in my late teens. Then the star a little later, when I started wrestling. But I didn't get the lotus until December 14, 2012, the day I wrestled my last match with Shimmer and signed my WWE contract. I'm not - it's not like I'm saying I'm the best, but I finished training, so the lotus is open."

He smiles at her. "That's a perfect reason, Bay."

"I've never talked about my tattoos with anyone," she says, softly. "Not Sasha or Becky or Char or Carm. Not my parents. But I don't mind telling you."

"Yeah?"

"You make me feel quiet. Wrestling is constant and loud and exhausting, and when I'm around you, I don't have to *be* anything or anyone else. I can be me."

He kisses the top of her head before he can stop himself. "I like it when you're you. Because you make me feel like me."

***

He debuts. He gets his title win. And then he gets hurt.

He goes to Birmingham, where he ends up with the man that put him there. Seth is - well, he's everything that Finn has never really liked. He's loud and insecure and too-funny and too-smart, and Finn ends up becoming friends in spite of himself. It helps that they've got some mutual friends in Kevin, Sami, and AJ. Through the rehab, Bayley is there as much as she can be for him. She calls him every other night, befriends Seth so she can have someone *else* to harass Finn into taking care of himself, and flies out to Alabama a few times. They're not dating, but they're not *not* dating.

Fate, karma . . . whatever you want to call it, synchs them up again. He's cleared to wrestle the same month that she wins the Raw women's championship. He has to sit out Wrestlemania, but he watches her successful title defense from gorilla, and he's the first to sweep her up into a hug - sweaty, hair a wreck, glitter rubbed into her skin and makeup everywhere, and he thinks she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Oh shite. Bleeding fucking hell. 

He's in love with her.

And he doesn't get a chance to breathe before people are pressing in around them, to congratulate her, to celebrate with her, to offer their wishes to him. It's not enough time to really get her attention, to let her know . . . well, it's just bad timing.

So he goes back to the hotel, and Skypes his parents and finishes the X-Wing fighter he's been working on and is on his tenth round of Angry Birds when there's a knock on the door. He didn't order room service, so he gets up warily and opens the door.

"You skipped out on me," Bayley says, barefoot on the hotel carpet. She's got her heels in the same hand she's carrying her gear bag, and she still looks amazing in her dress. 

He shifts to let her in. "Didn't wanna bother the champ. You must've had so many photos to do, people to talk to."

"That doesn't mean I wouldn't want you there," she says, shaking her head. She drops her heels and her gear bag, but without something to touch, her hands flex and wave awkwardly. "Finn, what's going on?"

It's possible he's about to ruin their friendship, but he has to be honest with her. 

"Don't hate me?" he says, and pulls her in by the wrist for a kiss.

He's kissed a lot of people, with varying degrees of success, but this - he's never felt so rocked by the press of someone's lips. She gasps a little against his mouth, curls her fingers into his tee-shirt and pulls him closer. It's clumsy and gorgeous and achingly sweet, and there's a point where he very nearly jabs his side with the end table, but they break for breath with Bayley stroking her fingers down his beard. She looks so amazing, all dark eyes and hair, thin silk dress showing off the strength in her lean body. 

"About that hating-you thing?"

He winces. "Yeah?"

"Would never happen." She taps his chest over his heart, and her nose wrinkles as she smiles. "You make me feel like me, Finn. I don't want to pretend that I don't want that all the time."

" _A thaisce_ ," he whispers, picking her up to seat her on the dresser, hold her close. "You don't even know how special you are. I'm with you, no matter what." 

He shouldn't promise that - they know well enough what happens on the road, what happens in locker rooms, the kind of environment they work in - but he does anyway. She deserves everything he can give her. The moon, if she wanted it.

He hopes it's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> A thaisce - my treasure (Gaelic)
> 
> Bayley's tattoos can be seen here: [Eye of Horus](http://fightsday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/maxresdefault-2-2-1068x601.jpg) and [Chinese character with lotus flower](https://i.postimg.cc/25sTVBYW/bayleyatthepcwithtattoo.jpg).


End file.
